Dick Francis's Damage

by Felix Francis

  Lydia laughed loudly at the inn-keeping Thénardiers, clung tightly to my hand when Éponine was killed, sobbed when little Gavroche was shot and wept openly when Jean Valjean died at the end, only to stand up and shout for more during the curtain calls.

  We bounded down the stairs to the street warbling the lyrics of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” at the tops of our voices, and then laughing as other people looked at us as if we were crazy. And we were.

  “God, what fun,” Lydia cried, hugging me outside the theater.

  I hugged her back.

  “How about the Dover Street Wine Bar?”

  “I thought you didn’t like jazz.”

  “I do tonight.”

  We had eaten dinner, then danced until they threw us out at three o’clock in the morning.

  We hadn’t actually made love on the backseat of the taxi on the way home, but it wasn’t due to a lack of intent on either of our parts. We just had an annoyingly talkative taxi driver who also wouldn’t stop looking at us in his rearview mirror as we giggled uncontrollably behind him.

  But we had made up for it when we’d arrived home, not finally succumbing to sleep until nearly five.

  Hence, we had overslept.

  Now I dragged myself, bleary-eyed and rather hungover, out of the train at Ascot and up the hill to the racetrack.

  Thanks to Crispin’s little ploy with the parking spaces request, Ascot was brimming with security personnel. And, no doubt, the BHA Integrity Department would also be out in force, even if they were largely unaware of the true reason.

  Consequently, I decided not to use my official credentials to get into the racetrack but paid my money at the turnstiles like everybody else.

  I wasn’t really sure why I was there. It was not as if I could actually do much, not without blowing my undercover status. But I knew I’d be happier being present at the track rather than sitting at home watching anything suspicious unfold on television.

  The day was bright and sunny, but it had turned bitterly cold, with a strong northerly wind blowing freezing air straight down off the polar ice cap. Hence, everyone was in thick overcoats with gloves, scarves and warm hats, that greatly helped me to blend in.

  I wore the brown woolen beanie that I’d last used at Cheltenham with the collar-length dark wig beneath. And the goatee was also making a repeat appearance, along with a pair of sunglasses. I had decided to come in disguise as I was concerned most about being recognized by one of my BHA colleagues, something which may have resulted in some awkward questions, rather than to remain incognito for any particular villains.

  It did, however, have its other advantages.

  I literally ran into Nick Ledder, the banned jockey I’d seen at Cheltenham—or, more accurately, he ran into me on the concourse of the enormous grandstand. Again, he had a tweed cap pulled down over his forehead and the collar of his coat turned up against the wind. I knew him instantly, but, fortunately, he didn’t recognize me even though he should know me quite well. I’d been the investigator who had testified against him at the disciplinary panel about his attempts to bribe another jockey.

  Why, I thought, is Nick Ledder jeopardizing his future riding career by being seen at a racetrack?

  Having nothing else better to do, I followed him.

  The main grandstand at Ascot was designed primarily for the Royal Ascot meeting, five days each June, when crowds of up to eighty thousand would descend on this southeastern corner of Berkshire for the annual flat-racing festival of horses, hospitality, and hats.

  A jumps meeting in freezing weather at the end of March, even on a Saturday, couldn’t muster a crowd hardly a tenth that size, and, despite a large part of the grandstand being closed off completely, the place seemed cavernous and echoey.

  And it didn’t make following a target particularly easy, not that tailing Nick Ledder was very revealing.

  He meandered around with seemingly no real purpose. He spoke to no one of interest and interacted only with the man behind the counter at one of the food stalls, where he bought a large Cornish pasty that he proceeded to inject with copious quantities of tomato ketchup from a pump.

  That, I thought, wouldn’t do his riding weight any favors.

  I used my cell phone to take a picture of him tucking into his high-calorie lunch with the crown logo of the Ascot racetrack clearly visible in the background, but I became bored with that particular game and was thankful when the runners for the first race started to arrive in the pre-parade ring and I was able to switch my attention to the horses.

  I leaned on a rail and watched as the ten runners for the two-mile novice hurdle were being saddled, the trainers constantly checking that everything was in order and nothing had been forgotten. Duncan Johnson was one of them. I glanced down to my program and was interested to note that the horse he was preparing was Paperclip, one of those owned by Ian Tulloch.

  I looked around for the owner and, sure enough, he was standing to one side, laughing and joking with a group of admiring ladies, all of them protected from the biting wind by thick fur coats and hats.

  Paperclip, now saddled and wearing a thick rug against the cold, was led by his groom towards the main parade ring. Ian Tulloch and friends, together with Duncan Johnson, followed behind, all of them in excited good humor.

  There was no sign of Duncan’s young mistress nor his wife.

  I looked up the record of Paperclip in the program. This was only his third-ever run and his first since before Christmas. He’d previously finished only fourth and sixth, but something about Ian Tulloch’s demeanor made me think that the horse had improved considerably over the intervening months and clearly much was expected of him today.

  I reckoned a minor betting coup was in progress, and it was all aboveboard and legal.

  An owner and trainer were not under any obligation to tell everyone else if they thought their horse would run rather better than its past record might suggest just as long as the previous poor record hadn’t been manufactured on purpose.

  I stood by the rail, watching, until all the other runners had been saddled and had departed the pre-parade area. No unauthorized person attempted to get near any of them, not that I’d really expected them to. I had to assume that the drinking-water truck was in place at the stables, and I could see no other way that Leonardo would be able to drug all the horses running.

  I wandered over to the main parade ring.

  Thanks to Crispin’s personal assistant, there were security guards everywhere, with twenty or more of them standing inside the rail, all facing outwards towards the crowd, to spot any miscreant who might attempt to approach the horses.

  I even spotted Crispin himself, standing at the top of the viewing area, keeping watch.

  He really must be worried, I thought. I couldn’t remember when Crispin had last actually been to the races. The racetracks were the domain of the investigators, not the analysts, and I’d certainly never seen him anywhere but in the London office. I ambled over to stand next to him. He ignored me, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the horses.

  “Anything to report, Crispin?” I asked quietly.

  Crispin glanced at me, then took a closer look.

  “Jeff?” he said with uncertainty.

  “I didn’t want any of our own guys to recognize me,” I said.

  “They certainly won’t,” he said, laughing.

  “Is there, in fact, anything to report?”

  “Nothing at all. No one is getting anywhere near any of the horses unless they’ve been authorized to do so. Even the trainers are complaining because they have to produce their pass cards every time they go to the stables.”

  “And the drinking water?”

  “Clean as a whistle.”

  “Good,” I said. “I see we have one of our esteemed Board members as an owner in the first.”

 
; “Mr. Tulloch,” Crispin said without warmth. “I never did like accountants.”

  “Meet you here after the third?”

  “Fine.”

  I drifted away and went through the grandstand to the viewing area beyond to watch the first race, stopping off briefly at a Tote counter to place a crisp twenty-pound note on Paperclip to win.

  The hurdle track at Ascot is just over a mile and a half around in a clockwise loop so the runners lined up for the two-mile start some ways to our right. They jumped two hurdles in front of the grandstand and then swung right-handedly down the hill for another complete circuit of the track.

  The jockey kept Paperclip closely in touch with the leaders as they raced over the three hurdles on the run down to Swinley Bottom, and then he started pushing Paperclip forward so that he had pulled clear of the others as they climbed the hill to the turn into the straight with just two more to jump.

  Paperclip appeared every inch the winner as he flew over the second last, gaining two or three lengths on his pursuers while in the air.

  But he didn’t win. He finished second.

  In the end, it was a close finish, but only because Paperclip’s jockey badly misjudged things going to the last flight of hurdles, by which point they were ten lengths in front and bound for victory.

  For some inexplicable reason, the jockey asked Paperclip to put in an extra stride before jumping when even the spectators in the grandstand could see that there wasn’t room for one and, consequently, the horse was far too close to the obstacle when he took off.

  He hit the hurdle hard with his front legs and almost came to a complete stop, landing on all four feet at once. Even then, the wretched jockey very nearly redeemed himself by getting the horse going again, but their momentum had gone and the favorite came sailing past in the last few strides to win by a neck.

  Many in the crowd cheered and jumped up and down with excitement, slapping one another on the back, not least to try to keep themselves warm against the icy wind that was blowing straight into our faces. Even I was getting cold and I usually didn’t worry about the weather conditions.

  I went back through the grandstand mostly to get out of the wind but also to watch the horses come back into the unsaddling enclosure.

  Ian Tulloch stood with Duncan Johnson, waiting for Paperclip to appear from the tunnel under the grandstand. Gone was Ian’s pre-race bonhomie. Now he didn’t look at all happy. In fact, quite the opposite. He stood, stiff-lipped, with his hands clenched into fists inside his brown leather gloves.

  I wasn’t exactly pleased to have lost my twenty pounds, but I wondered just how many tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, Ian Tulloch had just seen washed down the toilet. He had a well-deserved reputation as a big gambler, and, apart from the debacle at the last hurdle, Paperclip had indeed run a much better race than his starting price of fifteen-to-one might have suggested. Next time out he certainly wouldn’t start at such favorable odds.

  Mr. Tulloch’s little betting coup had failed miserably and any future opportunities had likely vanished with it.

  No wonder he was angry.

  The horses arrived, the much-backed winner receiving a small cheer from his supporters as his breath made great clouds of mist in the cold air and steam rose from his hindquarters.

  Meanwhile, Tulloch glared angrily at Paperclip’s jockey. I could just imagine what he was thinking. I was thinking it too.

  As with every other racetrack in the country, Ascot provided buckets full of water for the horses to drink or for them to be washed down after their exertions. During the race, the buckets had been left in lines, completely unattended, awaiting the horses’ return. Could they have been the source of the doping at Cheltenham? I watched as the water was now given to the horses, the winner gulping down half a bucketful in just a few seconds.

  No, I thought, the buckets couldn’t have been the cause. If a horse had consumed the methylphenidate only after the race was run, there surely wouldn’t have been enough time for the drug to pass through its system and into the urine before it was tested.

  Those horses selected for testing were taken directly from the unsaddling enclosure to the secure testing unit, where they had to remain until a sample was given. That could take some time, but most horses would pee within an hour, and many much sooner than that, especially if they were walked around and given more water to drink.

  The veterinary technicians became experts at knowing if and when a horse was about to stale and invariably produced the cup on a stick right on cue to catch the urine for the sample.

  And, in the unlikely event that a horse refused to perform within a couple of hours, blood would be taken instead. Either way, no horse was permitted to leave the unit until after suitable samples for testing had been obtained.

  The second race ran without incident, and the third also. Only four races to go.

  “Any problems?” I asked Crispin as we met again at the spot overlooking the parade ring.

  “None,” he said. “Everything seems to be going like clockwork.”

  No sooner had he said it than the racetrack klaxon sounded through the public address system. The klaxon was normally only used to announce a stewards’ inquiry. Everyone went quiet to listen.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer. “It is with regret that the stewards have abandoned the remaining races today due to a severe outbreak of food poisoning in the jockeys’ changing room.”

  Our extra security had concentrated only on the horses.

  We’d all been looking the wrong way.

  15

  It was the ginger cake.”

  We were in another specially convened BHA Board meeting held at Scrutton’s Club on Monday afternoon, and I was taking considerable flak for having suggested we ignore the previous demand.

  “What bloody ginger cake?” Ian Tulloch asked.

  “The ginger cake that many of the jockeys ate in the changing room at lunchtime on Saturday,” I said. “It was placed in the changing room sometime in the morning before anyone arrived. The caterers are adamant that they didn’t provide it. They told me they only put out the usual sandwiches and the cake must have already been there.”

  “Have we had this cake analyzed?” asked Roger Vincent.

  “It was all eaten,” I said. “It was apparently very popular.”

  “I thought jockeys didn’t eat cake,” said Piers Pottinger. “Too fattening.”

  “Apparently, they do,” I said. “Nearly all of the jockeys had some except a few who were doing really light weights. That’s how we know it’s the cake that was the cause. Those who didn’t eat it didn’t get ill.”

  “Have we any idea what was in it?” asked Bill Ripley.

  “No,” I said. “But it was something that made people very ill very quickly. Some sort of poison. A few of the jockeys were vomiting within half an hour. Others took longer. But everyone who ate the cake was ill eventually. The stewards had no alternative but to cancel racing as the weighing-room plumbing couldn’t keep up with the need.”

  Roger Vincent pulled a face.

  And well he might. Such was the state of the jockeys’ area that racing at Ascot had also been abandoned on Sunday due to health concerns.

  “How can we be sure that the same man is responsible for both the horse doping and this?” asked Howard Lever. “The food poisoning could have been an accident.”

  I looked around the table.

  It was obvious that no one else believed the food poisoning was an accident. Howard Lever was clutching at straws. And thin straws at that.

  “So what the bloody hell do we do now?” Ian Tulloch asked angrily. He’d been in a foul temper ever since he’d arrived five minutes late for the meeting. Indeed, I suspected he’d been in a continuous foul temper ever since Paperclip had failed to win the first race at Ascot on Saturday.
“How much do we have to pay this bloody man to leave us alone?”

  “Can’t we just increase security for both the horses and the jockeys?” said Stephen Kohli. “Surely it’s better to stop it happening again rather than giving in to this monster and paying him money.”

  “It might end up costing us less to pay him than to shell out for the extra security,” said Bill Ripley. “He’s now shown that when we protect the horses, he attacks the jockeys. If we protect them too, he’ll attack somewhere else. Next it may be the racegoing public who become ill or the fabric of our racetracks that’s damaged or destroyed. Can we afford that? Can we also afford to turn our racetracks into fortresses? And do we really want to have airport-style security checks everywhere?”

  Heads shook around the table and discussion followed for some while, with recriminations flying to and fro. The united front was beginning to crumble.

  “I think it’s high time we called in the police,” said Neil Wallinger.

  Howard Lever didn’t agree. “We will lose all authority over racing if the public finds out and calling in the police is tantamount to shouting it from the rooftops. If the police themselves don’t tell the newspapers, the man behind all of this will.”

  “So what do we do?” Neil asked with irritation. “We are losing our authority over racing anyway because it’s this man, not us, who is dictating what happens. We should inform the police before they discover it for themselves because then we will be the ones under investigation simply for staying silent.”

  “It surely must be illegal to poison people,” said Bill Ripley. “I’m surprised the police aren’t investigating the matter.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “No long-term harm was done. The jockeys recovered overnight. And no one else had been there, asking questions about the cake, when I went to see the racetrack caterers this morning. They said they knew nothing about it. I only heard about it from the jockeys. I spoke to some of them yesterday.”

  “Which jockeys?” Stephen Kohli asked me directly.

  “I spoke to half a dozen of them, but Brian Rice was the most helpful.” Brian Rice was one of the country’s most successful jump jockeys, a naturally thin man who had no trouble with his weight. “He told me he’d never thrown up so badly in his life. He thought he was dying, he felt so ill.”